Rev. Norman R. WHITE

WHITE, SCHWEITZER, MILLER

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 9/21/2006 at 01:30:20

Telegraph Herald (Dubuque, IA)
August 30, 1996

The Rev. Norman R. White, 72, 2078 Broadlawn Road, passed away at 12:24 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1996, at Mercy Health Center St. Joseph's Unit. Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Anthony's Catholic Church, with burial at 3 p.m. Saturday in St. John's Cemetery, Independence, Iowa. Friends may call from 4 to 9 p.m. today at the church, where there will be a parish wake service at 7 p.m. The Behr Funeral Home, 1491 Main St., is in charge of arrangements. Rev. White was born March 31, 1924, in Dyersville, Iowa, son of Victor W. and Emma (Miller) White. He was educated at Ss. Peter & Paul School, Sherrill, Iowa, and St. John's in Independence. He graduated from Loras College, Dubuque, and then studied theology at St. Meinrad Seminary. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Dubuque on May 26, 1949, by the Most Rev. E.A. Fitzgerald, DD, at Christ the King Chapel on the Loras campus. He pursued graduate studies at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. From July 1949 to June 1950 he served as an assistant pastor at St. Joseph's in Waterloo, Iowa. He taught at Loras College from 1950-55 when he moved to Mount St. Bernard Seminary and served there until 1960. He served as principal at Newman High School in Mason City, Iowa, from 1960-67. For a short time in 1967 he was at Little Turkey Reilly Settlement. He then became principal of Cathedral High School, Duluth, Minn. He was an associate pastor at St. Mary's, Dubuque, from 1972-73, when he was assigned to the Wahlert High School staff where he served until 1974. He was assigned to Eagle Grove, Iowa, from 1974-80. He then served at Fayette and Hawkeye, Iowa, before moving to St. Donatus, Iowa, as pastor in 1984. In 1957, Rev. White became a member of the Archdiocesan Board of Clergy Examiners, and, in 1960, he was named chairman of the Commission for Sacred Liturgy. In January 1983 he was appointed the Archdiocesan director of the Rural Life Conference. From 1984-94 he was the full-time director. He retired in 1994.

Rev. White was a member of Bread for the World, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Iowa National Heritage Foundation, National Soil and Water Conservation and the Dubuque Men's Choir. He served on the boards of the Prairie Fire Rural Action, Tri-State Tourism Council and Churches Center for Land and People. He was involved with many other organizations through the years. Among the many awards he received, he was recognized by the Dubuque Center for Theology and Land. Rev. White loved nature and the outdoors. He could often be heard whistling to the birds. He could sing with the best of them. In his own words he loved "walkin' and talkin' and gawkin' with God."

Surviving are four brothers, John A. (Kay) White, of Independence, Vincent F. White, of Pamona, Calif., Victor J. (Jayne) White, of Oregon, Ill., and Joseph P. White, of Ogden, Utah; and a number of nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by two sisters, Irma, in 1924, and Mary Schweitzer, in 1989; and a brother, Jerome White, in 1952. Memorials may be given to the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, 4625 Beaver Ave., Des Moines, Iowa 50310-2199.